Fuller, Buchanan, Pang and McIntyre named among judges of the 2023 SoA awards 

Claire Fuller, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Eric Ngalle Charles, Kathy O’Shaughnessy, Alvin Pang and Sarah McIntyre have been named among the judges of the 2023 Society of Authors (SoA) Awards.

The Awards celebrate writers of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and children’s literature, at all stages of their careers, awarding winners and runners-up from a prize fund of more than £100,000 in total.

The organisers said they are “delighted to welcome back a number of past SoA award-winners to our judging panels.”  Kathy O’Shaughnessy was the 2021 winner of the Paul Torday Memorial Prize (awarded to an author over the age of 60 for a first novel), and Anietie Isong was 2018 winner of the McKitterick Prize (awarded to an author over the age of 40 for a first novel).

This time around Hawthornden Literary Retreat will be funding the ADCI Literary Prize, ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award, Paul Torday Memorial Prize and McKitterick Prize this year, meaning winners will receive substantially more than in previous years.

The 2023 SoA Awards will also celebrate the inaugural winner of the ADCI (Authors with Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses) Literary Prize, which seeks to encourage greater positive representation of disability in literature and is open to authors with a disability or chronic illness, for novels that include a disabled or chronically ill character. 

On the judging panel are authors Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Penny Batchelor, Nydia Hetherington, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Karl Knights, Julia Lund, Vikki Patis and Chloe Timms.

The ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award will be judged by Claire Fuller, Sophie Haydock, Billy Kahora and Mary Watson; The Betty Trask Prize will be judged by Michael Donkor, Alex Preston and Sara Collins; The Cholmondeley Awards will be judged by Moniza Alvi, Hannah Lowe, Kei Miller and Deryn Rees-Jones; The Eric Gregory Awards will be judged by Raymond Antrobus, Eric Ngalle Charles, Wayne Holloway-Smith, Sarah Howe, Gwyneth Lewis and Joelle Taylor and the McKitterick Prize will be judged by Gonzalo C Garcia, Selma Dabbagh, Rebecca Foster, Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott, Anietie Isong and Nick Rennison.

The Paul Torday Memorial Prize will be judged by Kathy O’Shaughnessy, Rasheda Ashanti Malcolm and Andrew Taylor; the Queen’s Knickers Award will be judged by Sarah McIntyre, Ken Wilson-Max and Smriti Halls; the Somerset Maugham Awards will be judged by Fred D’Aguiar, Ardashir Vakil and Roseanne Watt and the Travelling Scholarships will be judged by Tahmima Anam, Gabriel Gbadamosi, Anne McElvoy, Alvin Pang and Philip Terry. Finally, the Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize will be judged by Aamer Hussein, Zeba Talkhani, and Kerry Young.

The awards ceremony will take place at Southwark Cathedral on 29th June and will be hybrid, with live streaming, British Sign Language interpretation and live captioning available.